Cast Long Shadows (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #2)(3)

“I wish I could say the same for you,” said Matthew. “Has no kind soul thought to inform you that your hairstyle is, to use the gentlest words available to me, ill-advised? A friend? Your papa? Does nobody care enough to prevent you from making a spectacle of yourself? Or are you simply too busy perpetrating acts of evil upon the innocent to bother about your unfortunate appearance?”

“Matthew!” said Thomas. “His friend died.”

Matthew strongly desired to point out that Alastair and his friends had been the ones to unleash a demon upon James, and their nasty prank going wrong was no more than their just deserts. He could see, however, that would distress Thomas extremely.

“Oh very well. Let us go,” he said. “Though I cannot help but wonder whose idea their nasty little trick was.”

“Wait a moment, Fairchild,” snapped Alastair. “You can go ahead, Lightwood.”

Thomas looked deeply worried as he went, but Matthew could see he was loath to disobey his idol. When Thomas’s worried hazel eyes flicked to Matthew, Matthew nodded, and Thomas reluctantly departed.

When he was gone, Matthew and Alastair squared off. Matthew understood that Alastair had sent Thomas away for a purpose. He bit his lip, resigned to a scuffle.

Instead Alastair said: “Who are you to play the moralist, talking about tricks and papas, considering the circumstances of your birth?”

Matthew frowned. “What on earth are you driveling about, Carstairs?”

“Everyone talks about your mama and her unwomanly pursuits,” said awful, unthinkable worm Alastair Carstairs. Matthew scoffed but Alastair raised his voice, persisting. “A woman cannot be a good Consul. Nevertheless your mother can continue her career, of course, since she has such strong support from the powerful Lightwoods.”

“Certainly our families are friends,” said Matthew. “Are you unfamiliar with the concept of friendship, Carstairs? How tragic for you, though understandable on the part of everyone else in the universe.”

Alastair raised his eyebrows. “Oh, great friends, no doubt. Your mama must require friends, since your papa is unable to play a man’s part.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Matthew.

“Odd that you were born so long after your papa’s terrible accident,” Alastair said, all but twirling an imaginary moustache. “Strange that your papa’s family will have nothing to do with you, to the extent of demanding that your mother renounce her married name. Remarkable that you bear no resemblance to your papa, and your coloring is so like Gideon Lightwood’s.”

Gideon Lightwood was Thomas’s papa. No wonder Alastair had sent Thomas away before making a ridiculous accusation like that.

It was absurd. Perhaps it was true that Matthew had fair hair, while his mama’s was brown and his father’s and Charles Buford’s was red. Matthew’s mama was tiny, but Cook said she thought Matthew would be taller than Charles Buford. Uncle Gideon was often with Mama. Matthew knew he had spoken for her when she was at odds with the Clave. Mama had once called him her good and faithful friend. Matthew had never thought much about it before.

His mama said his papa had such a dear, friendly, freckled face. Matthew had always wished he looked like him.

But he didn’t.

Matthew said, his voice strange in his own ears: “I do not understand what you mean.”

“Henry Branwell is not your father,” spat Alastair. “You are Gideon Lightwood’s bastard. Everybody knows it but you.”

In a white and blinding rage, Matthew struck him in the face. Then he went to find Christopher, cleared the area, and gave him matches.

A short but eventful time passed before Matthew left school, never to return. In that interval, a wing of the Academy blew up.

Matthew realized it had been rather a shocking thing to do, but while he was deranged he also demanded James be his parabatai and by some miracle James agreed. Matthew and his papa arranged to spend more time at the Fairchilds’ London home so that Matthew could be with both his papa and his parabatai. It had all, Matthew considered, worked out rather well.

If only he could forget.





The Shadow Market, London, 1901



Jem halted in the midst of the dancing flames and black iron arches of the London Market, startled by the appearance of a familiar face in an unexpected context, and even more so by the warmth of Matthew’s greeting.

He knew Charlotte’s son, of course. Her other boy, Charles, was always very cool and distant when he encountered Brother Zachariah on official business. Brother Zachariah knew that the Silent Brothers were meant to be detached from the world. His uncle Elias’s son, Alastair, had made that very clear when Brother Zachariah reached out to him.

This is how it should be, said his brothers in his mind. He could not always tell one of their voices from the others. They were a quiet chorus, a silent, ever-present song.

Jem would not have held it against Matthew if he felt the same way as many others, but he didn’t seem to. His bright, delicate face showed dismay all too clearly. “Am I being too familiar?” he asked anxiously. “I only supposed since I was James’s parabatai and that is what he calls you, I might do so as well.”

Of course you may, said Brother Zachariah.

James did, and James’s sister, Lucie, and Alastair’s sister, Cordelia, had taken to doing so as well. Zachariah considered that they were the three sweetest children in the world. He knew he might be a little partial, but faith created truth.